Children enjoy playing on riding toys and playground equipment that move cyclical, up and down, or circular motion. The classic teeter totter remains a favorite recreational toy for children. Children enjoy the sensation of jumping off, or being lifted from, the ground. Other toys which enable a child to sit and move in a generally circular manner are also traditional favorites. Children also enjoy bouncing toys including trampolines and large bouncing balls. Children particularly enjoy riding toys which enable them to expend energy. All of these toys provide essential proprioceptic input for developing children.
Existing riding toys including teeter totters and large rotating play devices, however, have a number of drawbacks. Traditional teeter totters require two children of generally equivalent weight to operate. Teeter totters typically provide only pivotal up and down motion about a fulcrum. The fixed up and down motion of the teeter totter typically does not attract a child's attention for a long period of time. Additionally, teeter totters are typically not configured to soften the impact to the child from either end of the teeter totter contacting the ground. This often results in a jarring impact between one child and the ground when the second child lifts off the opposite end of the teeter totter. Rotating toys typically also do not include the ability for the child to move up and down. Additionally, rotating toys are often large, heavy, difficult to operate, difficult to stop and difficult to reverse in direction. Moreover, teeter totters and large rotating riding toys often have unsafe, sharp corners and edges. Some toys have attempted to combine a rotating riding toy with a single child teeter totter. Such devices often have a counterweight assembly dangerously suspended on an opposite end of the teeter totter type rod. The large and heavy counterweight assembly of such toys counteracts the movement of the child riding the toy such that the counterweight assembly swings left or right and up and down creating a safety hazard for children observing or playing nearby. Further, existing riding toys such as teeter totters and large rotatable toys are typically not suitable for home use due to their size and weight, and because such toys are not designed to softly impact the surface upon which the toys rest.
Large bouncing balls provide the ability for a child to bounce up and down and to direct the ball in different directions. However, such balls also are easily rotated, such that the handle rotates toward the surface, which often results in the child falling from the ball. The huge bouncing balls can also be difficult for a child to control and can result in the child inadvertently bouncing in an undesired direction.
Given these and other deficiencies in the art of child amusement devices of the type that may be ridden, the need for continued improvement in the art is evident.